


Ichi-ri

by Truth



Category: Koko wa Greenwood | Here is Greenwood
Genre: M/M, Mind Games, Sex, Shenanigans, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-04-24
Updated: 2007-04-24
Packaged: 2017-10-14 06:34:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/146411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Truth/pseuds/Truth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mitsuru and Shinobu have lived together for three years in the closed environment of the Greenwood dormitory at Ryokuto High School, and things are very different in the world outside… or, perhaps, they’re exactly the same.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ichi-ri

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [info]yaoi_challenge Obscure Fandom Challenge 2007. Spoilers for possibly all nine volumes of the manga, but especially volume 4. Title is taken from a comment made by Shinobu in Vol 4.

One of the main differences between attending an all male high school and the campus of a regular university, as Ikeda Mitsuru soon discovered, is that it is impossible to avoid roving gangs of young women by taking cover within a nearby school building. While most young men had little to fear from such things and, in point of fact, would have been more likely to encourage such attention than flee from it, in Mitsuru’s life such events were frequent to the point of irritation.

Mitsuru’s main problem, as his roommate took sardonic delight in pointing out, was that he was not only strikingly good-looking, he persisted in being friendly and easy-going as well. As far as Tezuka Shinobu was concerned, the usefulness of being considered approachable was outweighed by the disadvantages.

Today, for the third week in a row, the small board used by the Photography Club for candid snap shots of their fellow students featured a small, very clear picture of Mitsuru, winning smile noticeably absent and hair ruffled, with three different shades of bright lipstick visible – brow, cheek and one just to the right of his Adam’s apple. The smear on his cheek was a particularly obnoxious shade of bright pink and he scowled at the picture, ignoring the titters as other students paused to see what had caught his attention. It was only the fourth week of the first term and he was already notorious, thanks to the Photography Club.

“The dark red isn’t bad,” came an almost dispassionate observation from behind him, and Mitsuru winced, glancing back to find Shinobu examining the picture from over his shoulder. “But the pink is really not your shade.”

“Do you know how much it cost me last week to get that stuff off my collar?” Mitsuru demanded. “It’s not _funny_.”

“No,” Shinobu agreed, glancing at the small pin-up that listed the contributors to the board. “It isn’t. On the other hand, perhaps you shouldn’t have insulted the president of the club when she asked you to join?”

There was a series of flashes and Mitsuru spun, glaring indignantly as a pair of giggling young women took their cameras and fled. “Damn it, Shinobu, _you’re_ the one who told her that photography was the last refuge of those too lazy to _write_ the thousand words they were supposed to be illustrating!”

His ire wasn’t helped by the realization that Shinobu had raised the notebook he was holding between himself and the cameras and thus successfully avoided being included in the pictures that had just been taken.

Lowering his temporary shield, Shinobu raised a single eyebrow. He’d been prepared for this, well aware that his own habit of wearing a tie to class contrasted nicely with Mitsuru’s more casual clothing. “You wanted her to leave. She left. Are you complaining as to my methods?”

“It’s like our first year at Ryokuto all over again.” Mitsuru gave his roommate a hard look. “You’re not backsliding on me, are you?”

Shinobu held up both hands and gave him an appealing smile. “I’m far too busy to indulge in petty chicanery these days. Some of us,” still smiling, “plan to actually come away from our college years with an education.”

“Petty chicanery is beneath you only because you have the more serious variety in mind,” Mitsuru accused. He blew out a frustrated huff of air, giving Shinobu a suspicious, sidelong look. “We’re not kids anymore, Shinobu, and a fight in the University library would probably get both of us arrested.”

The notebook was already moving upward again and Mitsuru took a hasty step forward, grabbing his roommate’s shoulder and spinning Shinobu as Misturu took cover behind him. The notebook continued to move, still managing to shield Shinobu’s face from the amateur photographers.

Shinobu’s expression, as he lowered the notebook, no longer held amusement.

“This,” Mitsuru declared, slumping against him, “is ridiculous.”

“It is also making you late for class,” Shinobu pointed out.

With an outraged gnash of his teeth, Mitsuru brought up his arm, heedless of the fact that it was around Shinobu's neck. They both looked at his watch, although only Mitsuru cursed and took off running - leaving Shinobu alone with the bulletin board. Shinobu’s smile faded as he looked again at the picture of his roommate, disheveled and slightly surprised, lipstick smeared….

Twenty seconds with the screwdriver Shinobu kept in his coat pocket had the glass case that protected the bulletin board open and the picture removed. Mitsuru’s picture was not the only thing which he removed from the case, thoughtfully locking it again to prevent further, less justified theft.

Ignoring the shocked looks and whispers, Shinobu glanced at his own watch. He didn’t have any classes this afternoon, but the student government meeting was in an hour… just enough time to run back to the apartment and check on something.

The very faint smile that he was wearing as he made his way to the bus stop would have frozen Hasukawa and Shun in their tracks had they been present. It was perhaps fortunate that no one quite as well acquainted with him was there to see it.

 _“There are three types of smiles you’ll find on Shinobu’s face.” Shun held up three fingers and folded the first one over. “The first is the one that means nothing and is simply camouflage for all sorts of unpleasant ulterior motives. It’s… friendly.”_

 _Hasukawa shivered. “I’ve seen that one. It’s never quite the same once you know him, is it?”_

 _Shun nodded solemnly and folded over a second finger. “The second one is the smile that says he’s about to take you for everything you have, everything your roommate has and possibly your first born.”_

 _“At least that one’s_ honest _,” was Hasukawa’s somewhat forlorn insertion into the conversation as he slowly toppled backward to stare up at the ceiling. “And we usually see it turned on other people.”_

 _“Thankfully.” Shun shook his head sadly and folded down a third finger. “And then there’s the smile he uses when he thinks no one’s looking.”_

 _There was a great deal of blinking and thoughtful brow scrunching from the boy on the floor. “… what smile is that?”_

 _“_ Exactly _.”_

 _After a long pause, Hasukawa shivered again. “That? That is frightening.”_

 _“Isn’t it?”_

“Hey, Shinobu?” Mitsuru finished rifling through the fliers on his desk, frowning. “Shinobu!”

The tiny apartment only had four rooms – kitchen, bedroom, living room and the tiny room they used as a shared study. Mitsuru refused to consider the tiny W/C a room, despite the boasts of the realtor. There was no way that Shinobu could fail to hear him, even if he had been muttering. That didn’t keep him from calling out again as he went through the wastepaper basket. “Shinobu!”

It only took ten minutes to go through the entire apartment, searching through the day’s mail, peering into the mostly empty kitchen cupboards and even crawling around to be certain the errant piece of paper hadn’t been accidentally swept behind one of their few pieces of furniture.

He also had to, inevitably, accept the fact that Shinobu simply wasn’t at home. This was odd and also slightly disturbing. There was a neat, color-coded schedule on the back of the door which listed exactly where either of them could be found on a given day and Shinobu should definitely have been here – especially as it was his turn to pay for dinner.

Mitsuru nearly got his nose broken when the schedule he was frowning at suddenly moved toward him at high speed. It stopped at the last possible safe instant and Shinobu looked around the edge of the door at him. “That’s a very unsafe place to be contemplating the oneness of being."

“It was your idea to hang the blasted schedule on the back of the door,” Mitsuru informed him irritably, edging out into the room. “Where’s my dinner?”

Shinobu held up a paper sack, smiling faintly. “Is that what you were bellowing about? I’d wondered.”

Momentarily distracted, Mitsuru paused in his lunge for the gently steaming bag. “Oh. No. I mean, what happened to that envelope from the audio visual department?”

The bag was whisked out of his grasp as Shinobu closed the door and headed for the tiny kitchen. “The one that woman brought by, thus beginning your feud with the Photography club?”

“That’s the one.” Following Shinobu as if the other man were the Pied Piper of Hamlin, Mitsuru attempted to reach around him, but the bag was easily kept out of reach. “I was just reconsidering….”

“Which one of them got to you?” Beer was the first thing out of the bag, set on the counter even before Shinobu shrugged out of his long coat. “The one with the red lipstick?”

Mitsuru flushed slightly, reaching for the beer. “The photographer in that case, actually. She said that, well, that they wanted me to join because….”

“Because they wanted to pad their membership by luring in fresh meat with the prospect of photographing your attractively and strategically draped body?” Shinobu was smiling as he unpacked the dinners, sliding Mitsuru’s toward him.

“That’s _not_ how she put it!”

“I’d imagine it wasn’t.” Shinobu turned, still smiling, and Mitsuru froze, mid-grab for his dinner.

“I know that look.” Mitsuru knew it very well indeed. “What have you done?”

“Dinner, Mitsuru.” Shinobu picked up his own beer and swung easily around Mitsuru, his own dinner balanced in one hand. Mitsuru’s grab for his elbow was anticipated and evaded without so much as turning a hair, leaving Mitsuru glaring after him.

“Shinobu!”

By the time Mitsuru dropped down opposite his roommate, Shinobu was halfway done with his own meal – a speed encouraged by years of sharing dinners in a dormitory where competitive theft from nearby trays was a full contact sport – and mostly perpetrated by Mitsuru.

“Shinobu, you did something – something I’m going to disapprove of.” There was a dangerous edge to Mitsuru’s voice as he thumped his own dinner down.

“You disapprove of so many things,” Shinobu responded blandly, picking up his beer for a brief swallow. “It’s sometimes hard to keep them all straight.”

“You got her expelled.” Mitsuru was no longer hungry, staring instead at Shinobu, eyes hard.

“I did not.”

Mitsuru blinked. Shinobu told a great many lies, but he generally stuck to the truth when dealing with Mitsuru, and his response said a great many things.

 _”How can you tell when Shinobu is lying?” Shun was hanging out of his bunk, staring up at Hasukawa’s arm, which is all he could see of his roommate._

 _“He’s_ breathing _,” was the somewhat sour response. Hasukawa made a fist before rolling over and sticking his head out of his bunk to stare down at Shun. “He is the most…._ devious _….”_

 _Shun grinned up at him. “Something like that. But you can tell, you know. When he’s lying.”_

 _Hasukawa blinked down at him. “_ How _?”_

 _“All you have to do is watch Mitsuru. He_ always _knows.”_

“You didn’t have her kidnapped, did you?” Mitsuru wasn’t at all reassured by Shinobu’s declaration of innocence as far as expulsion went, as it left an entire raft of possibilities… and he hadn’t _denied_ doing something, simply stated that it hadn’t led to expulsion.

Shinobu gave him a mildly disgusted look. “I am not my sister.”

“Thankfully.”

“Then again, I’m not the one who sold my virginity to her at age eleven, either – however unsuccessfully.” Mitsuru gibbered as Shinobu took another sip of his beer. “Really, Mitsuru,” and his eyes glinted as he lowered the can, “do you _want_ to know?”

“I… no.” Mitsuru’s jaw clenched as he recovered his composure. “Don’t start this again, Shinobu. We’re in a new place with a new group of people and I _know_ you were experimenting on the students at Ryokuto as if they were your own, personal ant farm. I’m not going to tell you that you can’t do as you please, because I know that you will anyway, but I _am_ going to tell you that there are limits.”

“What sort of limits?” Shinobu inquired, sounding genuinely interested. His dinner was still disappearing with amazing swiftness.

“Don’t screw around with my life, Shinobu.” Mitsuru drew a line in the air with his hand. "There is a line, and you don't cross it. Ever."

There was a brief pause as Mitsuru's hand hung in the air between them before Shinobu shook his head. "No."

"No?" Mitsuru's hand clenched into a fist.

"No." Shinobu put down his beer and pushed the empty box of his dinner away. "And I can tell you why in a single word."

Mitsuru hesitated. "Which word?"

"Nagisa."

There was a very long silence as Mitsuru considered that, broken when Shinobu rose to his feet. "Where the hell are you going?"

Shinobu smiled at him. "Out. Much as I'd enjoy reminiscing with you over my sister's various exploits involving you and your clothing - or lack thereof - I have genuine business to discuss. Family business."

”This,” Mitsuru gestured at the space between them, “is not over.”

Reaching into the kitchen to retrieve his coat, Shinobu shook his head. “It is. I’ll see you in the morning, Mitsuru.”

 _”What do you think they’re up to now?” Hasukawa yawned and stretched as Shun shut off the light. “I mean, three years here and now they’re at the university.”_

 _“Same as always,” was Shun’s sleepy response. “Finding new and even more gullible targets to swindle, bamboozle and confuse. Those two will never change.”_

 _“Do you really believe that?”_

 _“They’re still roommates.” The sound of covers shifting and the groan of the springs of the lower bunk were followed by the sigh of someone who’d been on their feet all day. “I don’t think anything has really changed.”_

 _Hasukawa stared into the darkness, frowning. “That’s what I’m afraid of….”_

Mitsuru didn’t see Shinobu in the morning, as it turned out – or at least didn’t get a chance to talk to him. Woken early by the telephone, he found himself dealing with the panicked questions of one of the high school students that he tutored for. He was still blearily attempting to conjugate French verbs over the phone when Shinobu left their apartment.

That this was probably by design did not escape him, nor improve his mood.

By the time Misturu reached campus he was more or less resigned to finding out what Shinobu had done the hard way. The first sign that _something_ had changed was the fact that he didn’t see a single camera or catch even the glimpse of a flash out of the corner of his eye. By the end of his first class, he could tell by the tension in the air that something was definitely up.

The Photography Club’s board was empty, save for a single notice left amid the various push-pins and abandoned tacks.

  
**The Photography Club has been temporarily suspended due to a pending investigation by the Student Ethics Committee.**   


“Shinobu strikes again.”

“Mitsuru!”

He turned, finding himself face to face with the pretty photographer who’d given him his earlier second thoughts. “Morning, Amiko.” He jerked a thumb at the bulletin board. “What do you know about this?”

“I got a phone call last night,” she told him, eyes wide. “Apparently there’s been talk of a sexual harassment injunction against the club president. No one’s sure what’s going on, but the university thought it would be best to suspend club activities until they’ve gone through the legal documents.”

Mitsuru closed his eyes and counted, very slowly, to ten.

“I’m so sorry, Mitsuru,” Amiko continued, biting her lip. “And just as you were thinking of joining!”

Eyes opening again, Mitsuru looked at her thoughtfully. “Why _did_ you ask me to join, Amiko?”

“It was Makoto’s idea,” she confessed, flushing slightly. “She said that she’d gotten off on the wrong foot with you when she’d spoken to you the first time, and she thought that someone else might have better luck.”

Score one for Shinobu. Mitsuru gave Amiko a cheerful smile. “Does the club have a lot of trouble getting models for some of its projects?”

“Well….” Amiko’s flush deepened and she fiddled with the strap of her bag. “Makoto said you were used to posing in… costume, and that there was that professional thing you did….”

Score two – set and match. Mitsuru fought the urge to growl. ‘Costume’ was at least a step above ‘life studies’. No power in the world would get Ikeda Mitsuru to pose without clothing. His family’s temple would spontaneously combust if _that_ ever got out.

So Shinobu had, perhaps, had a point. That didn’t mean that Mitsuru was going to let him get away with this.

“Tell me, Amiko.” Mitsuru leaned casually against the wall, smiling at her brightly. “What _other_ clubs do you belong to?”

 _”Have Mitsuru and Shinobu ever had a serious disagreement?” Hasukawa sank back in the bath, letting out a long sigh of relief as the heat seeped into his muscles._

 _“I thought you couldn’t wait to get rid of them?” Shun was still busy winding his long hair up into a towel as he perched on the edge of the bath. “You sure talk about them a lot for a guy who was laughing maniacally at the very sight of their empty room at the beginning of term.”_

 _“I don’t_ miss _them, if that’s what you mean,” Hasukawa insisted indignantly, splashing a bit in his vehemence. He sank further, until only his head was still out of the water. “I’m just… curious.”_

 _“Well… there was a story I heard from Furusawa,” Shun offered doubtfully, slipping into the water and giving an indulgent sigh of his own. “Something that happened their first year.”_

 _“What, they fought over who got to fleece someone first?”_

 _“Mmm. I don’t know. From what I heard, it was a miracle that they weren’t both expelled. Mitsuru beat Shinobu into unconsciousness in the library… not that Misturu walked away without some pretty spectacular bruises of his own.”_

 _Hasukawa nearly inhaled a mouthful of water. “Wha… what!?”_

 _“Furusawa wasn’t there either,” Shun admitted doubtfully, “but from what I heard, they had to carry Shinobu to the infirmary, but Mitsuru was limping under his own power.”_

 _“Mitsuru beat up…_ Shinobu _? Are you sure you don’t have that backward?”_

 _Shun nodded. “They tore up the study area in the library pretty badly, I guess… but it’s the only fight anybody’s ever even heard of between the two of them.”_

 _Hasukawa sank back into the water to consider this, stunned. After a while, he offered, “Mitsuru always does what Shinobu says, but….”_

 _“It works both ways,” Shun agreed. “Shinobu must’ve done something pretty spectacular for Mitsuru to actually try to beat the crap out of him.”_

 _“And you know it was Mitsuru who started it,” Hasukawa agreed slowly. “Shinobu would never, ever resort to something like that in public.”_

 _“Wouldn’t he?” Shun asked doubtfully. “With Shinobu, you never really know.”_

Four weeks passed without much in the way of communication between Shinobu and Mitsuru. Shinobu had a part time job, or so he referred to it, learning how his family’s corporation worked. Mitsuru’s part time job involved tutoring and took a great deal less time, but his half of the schedule was suddenly covered with blue and green patches indicating club activities or dates and Shinobu found himself regarding that schedule thoughtfully from the same position that Mitsuru had occupied a month before.

“I see. Fujimori Amiko, wasn’t it?” He tapped his finger against the schedule. “A private design college, I think. You saw the portfolio, do you think they’d accept her at this late date?”

There was a pause as he moved into the kitchen, switching the small cell phone to his other ear and holding it in place as he examined the contents of the tiny, shared fridge. “Invent a scholarship, then. We offer enough of them. Claim misfiled paperwork and an anonymous submission of her work. Possibly someone from the now-defunct Photography Club.”

Finding a small, sealed container holding what looked like boiled eggs, he closed the fridge and moved to the counter. He set the container down beside a manila folder and popped open the top. “No, there’s no need for that. Call Noriko. She’ll be able to give you an honest assessment. In fact, see if she’d be willing to sponsor the girl.”

Egg halfway to his mouth he paused, waiting. “What, tonight?” Shinobu leaned backward, eyeing the schedule, which was barely visible from across the room. “No. Not tonight. I’ll be there tomorrow, however, without fail.”

A press of his phone terminated the conversation and he flipped open the manila folder even as he began dialing a second number. “Fujimori, please.”

By the time Amiko’s voice came on the line, Shinobu was wearing a small, satisfied smile. “Hello, Fujimori? This is Tezuka, Ikeda’s roommate. There’ve been good things said about you in the Student Government, and I know Ikeda respects your opinion, so I was wondering if you’d be interested in helping to set up a brand new club to take the place of the Photography Club until the legal mess is cleared up?”

Leaning against the counter, he listened while she fluttered bashfully, still reading the contents of the folder and only listening with half an ear. “Hmm? Another audio-visual club, actually, just a sort of trial run to see if it’s the sort of thing that the school would want to sponsor on a full time basis. We thought that the current surplus in the events budget might allow for a brief experiment.”

Another egg disappeared as Amiko treated him to a torrent of bubbling thanks for the opportunity, and Shinobu finally broke in to say, “Can you meet me tonight? I’d be happy to give you the entire proposal over dinner and we can discuss it. Six o’clock?”

The schedule fixed to the door proclaimed six o’clock to be the beginning of one of Mitsuru’s tutoring sessions and Shinobu’s smile was bright as he put the single remaining egg back into the fridge. “All right. I’ll meet you at the train station.”

As he thumbed the phone off, Shinobu’s smile vanished. He moved into the cramped study area, not minding the lack of space after three years of sharing a single room with Mitsuru. The place was remarkably clean, for all the drifts of paper that spilled out of the plastic tub Mitsuru insisted on calling his ‘inbox’. Removing a single piece of paper from the folder, he slid it somewhere into the middle of Mitsuru’s pile of unsorted correspondence.

Yes. Everything was moving along very nicely….

 _”Mitsuru?” Hasukawa stared at his friend and sometime nemesis, who gave him a careless wave, seemingly unaware of the fact that he was not supposed to be sprawled out on Hasukawa and Shun’s shared floor._

 _“Isn’t it wonderful?” Shun asked him, eyes sparkling with suppressed mischief. “Mitsuru is working as a tutor and apparently someone recommended him to the little sister of one of your sister-in-law’s friends!”_

 _Hasukawa blanched. “Oh no….”_

 _Mitsuru gave him the lazy smile of a satisfied predator. “And we all know how much dear Sumire worries about her little brother.... She remembered that I used to help you study and, wanting you to continue to receive high grades, she is paying me to bully, that is,_ tutor _you, twice a week.”_

 _“I… you… she….” Hasukawa’s mouth was moving but not much was coming out._

 _“She wanted it to be a surprise!” Shun volunteered, not even attempting to hide his wide grin._

 _“I hope you’ve been keeping up,” Mitsuru said, mock worry in his tone. “The memory of having to repeatedly administer a whack to the head for your lack of attention_ haunts _me. Having a girlfriend isn’t hurting your grades, it it?”_

 _“YOU HAVEN’T CHANGED AT ALL!”_

 _Shun dove behind Mitsuru to take cover, laughing too hard to speak, as Mitsuru held up his hands. “True. I’m the epitome of mature, learned adulthood whereas_ you _are still just a callow boy.”_

 _“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!”_

“This is a brilliant opportunity to create audio-visual stimulation and gain direct and immediate feedback as to the visceral reactions of our audience!” Amiko was so excited that she couldn’t actually seem to sit still, instead flitting from one spot to the next as she presented the concept to the remnants of the Photography Club and quite a few other students who’d been lured in by the recent publicity campaign.

“Best of all,” she continued, spreading her arms, “there’s room here for actors, models, still and video work, writers… all of us, and the university is willing to sponsor webspace so we can put together all of it to be seen as a completed project, including secondary feedback!”

There was a murmur around the room as her enthusiasm seemed to be catching. Mitsuru shifted uncomfortably, thinking that there was a catch here somewhere, but being unable to spot it. Amiko was still talking and he shifted his attention back to her as she continued.

“The most difficult part will be scheduling, but as we won’t need all of us together at once save for actual performance and recording, we’re going to try a tentative two week schedule. Two days brainstorming, two days for writing and deciding on a place, two days for costuming and any props, two days to double-check blocking and camera placement, two days rehearsal, two days to troubleshoot, one day’s dry run and we’re good to go.”

Mitsuru looked down at the carefully put together schedules, examples and list of places on the web where similar projects could be viewed and wondered exactly how sweet, slightly ditzy Amiko had suddenly become so very organized.

“… three months trial, and if we make a success of it, the university has been persuaded to review giving us our own budget and letting us continue!” Amiko was practically crowing with excitement as she again threw out her arms. “One of the programming classes has agreed to handle the website and the loading of content, so all we have to do tonight is decide what our first project will be!”

As the entire room broke into excited babble, Mitsuru’s uneasiness grew. This was _too_ smoothly orchestrated and it was definitely giving him danger signs.

“Mitsuru!” Startled, he found himself surrounded by three or four girls, all jabbering excitedly.

“Oh, it will be so _exciting_ and it’s too bad we don’t have more male actors, but the drama club is so strict and….”

He found himself smiling at them automatically and decided that, really, it did look like quite a lot of fun. It wasn’t until after he’d signed the club roster and passed it on to the next person that he glanced up to see Amiko cheerfully babbling at a familiar, coolly composed figure and _knew_ that he’d been had.

Shinobu turned, caught Mitsuru’s look and smiled…..

 _”This,” Mitsuru declared awfully, opening the door labeled 210 without bothering to knock, “means_ war _.”_

 _“I didn’t do it!” Hasukawa protested immediately, looking up from his books with no little alarm._

 _“Neither did I,” Shun added. “What means war, Mitsuru?”_

 _Mitsuru came to a halt and blinked. “I’m… not sure.”_

 _Shun and Hasukawa exchanged a look of complete understanding. “Shinobu,” they chorused._

 _With a growl, Mitsuru slammed the door behind him and stalked across the dorm room to stare at the window. “He’s… he’s….”_

 _“Diabolical?”_

 _“Fiendish?”_

 _“A criminal genius?”_

 _“Going to rule the world someday?”_

 _Mitsuru wheeled and glared darkly at them both, effectively shutting them up. “He managed to maneuver me into this… flash performance thing and then the girl running it up and transferred to another university in the middle of term and left_ him _in charge.”_

 _Shun exchanged uneasy looks with Hasukawa. “Um, Mitsuru? Did we miss something? Aren’t you two generally_ partners _in crime?”_

 _“….” Mitsuru looked away._

 _“Oh, this is going to be good.” Hasukawa leaned forward, eyes wide. “Spill, Mitsuru.”_

 _“Tell us_ everything _!”_

The first time that Mitsuru missed a planning meeting, he thought little of it. He’d agreed to act, and as there was only a loose script and the rest was improvisation, it wasn’t anything earth-shattering about his not being there when the type of performance was decided upon and he didn’t have to show up again until the first rehearsal. Not even Shinobu could have engineered a failure on the train line.

Missing both rehearsals was the result of an emergency call from the father of one of the students he was tutoring. The boy had managed to pull a very low grade in one of his tests, despite Mitsuru’s efforts, and he had a one-time chance to improve his grade. Mitsuru spent four evenings on the boy, relentlessly drilling him until he was absolutely perfect.

It would be paranoia to think that Shinobu had bribed the boy to throw a grade.

The fact that his copy of the script was nowhere to be found…?

“Shinobu.” Mitsuru was very proud of the fact that his voice was even. Standing in the doorway of their shared study, he glared down at his roommate.

Shinobu glanced up from the ledger he was working on and blinked. “I thought you had tutoring this afternoon?”

“I did.” Mitsuru gave him a shark-like smile. “But as it’s for a student you don’t know anything about, I was able to shift it around. Rumor has it that there was a script delivered here for Saturday’s performance. Where is it?”

“It’s a lie,” Shinobu assured him, turning in the chair and stretching his legs out. “There’s no script.”

Mitsuru made a scoffing noise. “You don’t honestly expect me to believe that.”

“I do.” Shinobu gave him a half-smile. “You didn’t ask who wrote this one, did you?”

“I… no.”

Shinobu nodded. “It’s two man improv in the park beside the senior women’s apartments. I put together the concept… and there’s no script.”

“You did.” Mitsuru gave him a thoughtful look.

“Are you saying that you can’t improvise off something I give you?” Shinobu raised an eyebrow.

There it was; challenge and payoff. Mitsuru met his gaze, mind racing. Whatever Shinobu was up to, this… probably wasn’t it. It was his first overt move, however, and that meant that he was gambling on a specific reaction and, playing off Mitsuru’s pride so obviously meant that he expected Mitsuru to see it and issue a denial.

“I can.” Not an empty boast. They’d been working together smoothly as a team for approximately three years and they’d played off of and opposite each other so often that it was second nature.

Shinobu displayed no visible reaction, robbing Mitsuru of the opportunity to tell if he’d guessed right or if he’d simply played further into Shinobu’s hands. “All right. Saturday, in the park beside the senior women’s apartments. I’ll meet you there at two.”

A single piece of paper was produced and held out. Mitsuru took it, scanning the short list.

“… jeans and the blue sweater.” He blinked. “That thing?”

The blue sweater had been an experiment in knitting by his mother and it was far too big, but he kept it and even wore it when it was especially cold. Shinobu simply nodded and turned back to his ledger.

Experience told Mitsuru that he’d get nothing out of Shinobu until Saturday and, with a quick look at the clock, he decided that he’d get some of his own homework done for once, instead of worrying about that of his students.

When Shinobu finally closed up his books and left, for a date, according to the schedule, Mitsuru made a few phone calls to some of the other club members. Yes, the time and place were correct, Shinobu was the one who’d come up with the idea of something completely extemporaneous for their first experiment, although he’d insisted that he and Mitsuru be the ones to carry it out, as they were the only ones who’d worked together before.

“… what the hell is he planning?” The stack of homework he was addressing remained silent, however, and Mitsuru sighed. He’d just have to wait until Saturday to find out.

 _”So… you’re just supposed to show up and_ do _something and you don't know what it's going to be?” Shun blinked. "Isn’t that going to be a bit difficult?”_

 _Mitsuru reached out and casually swatted Hasukawa with a rolled up exercise book as the younger man looked up from his homework. “No conversation for you! Work!”_

 _Grumbling, Hasukawa did as he was told, but his ears were almost visibly twitching._

 _“There’s supposed to be a script,” Mitsuru admitted, scowling. “You don’t have to do more than stick to the basic idea and let it mutate naturally depending on the reactions of the people around you, but Shinobu decided to do something entirely fluid and….”_

 _“And you don’t trust him?” Hasukawa ducked Mitsuru’s swing and scrambled out of the way. “Oh come on, Mitsuru. If you didn’t want me listening instead of working, you shouldn’t have started talking about it!”_

 _“Shinobu’s too clever to do anything incriminating on camera,” Shun pointed out logically. “If he arranged it, you can bet anything you like that whatever’s going to happen is going to benefit him – but that doesn’t mean it’ll hurt_ you _Mitsuru.”_

 _“No,” Mitsuru agreed grimly, “but that doesn’t mean it won’t incriminate me in something or….” He paused, eyes narrowing._

 _“Maybe he wants you to start something!” Hasukawa blurted out. “I mean, if he can get you to swing first…?”_

 _Mitsuru stared at him as if he’d grown a second head. “What?”_

 _Shun flushed. “Um, we heard a story about a fight you guys had, your first year?”_

 _Transferring his stare to Shun, Mitsuru thought about that, wheels almost visibly turning. “That… would make a whole lot of sense, actually.”_

Mitsuru was still thinking about that fight as he headed toward his Saturday rendezvous. He’d suckered Shinobu into an ambush in the library, somewhere public, somewhere that Shinobu wouldn’t be expecting a confrontation – especially not from _him_. He’d done it to prove a point, not to himself or to his audience, but to Shinobu – and he’d succeeded.

‘Nobody hates Shinobu more than himself… why **choose** such unhappiness if you don’t have to?’

But Shinobu hadn’t really changed, and maybe that’s what this was all about – to maneuver Mitsuru into another fight and, this time, be the last man standing.

To prove… what?

He was still wondering when he caught sight of Shinobu… and at least two of the terribly casual and actually fairly well disguised camera teams. The tiny cameras didn’t need more than one person for operation, really. The second student was to watch and direct a change of focus if something interesting went on in the crowd. The small park was relatively crowded. It was a bright May day and the women from the student apartments were known to come here to relax – which attracted the men.

Shinobu was leaning against a tree almost in the center of the park. It was a good place, appearing secluded but actually visible to most of the rest of the park. He looked… broody, attired in the clothes he normally wore to visit his family corporation’s office – a suit and tie with the addition of a long coat, even in the relatively mild temperatures of a warm spring day. He was already attracting a fair share of appreciative stares, which was no doubt why he’d arrived first. Mitsuru made a bee-line toward him, feeling no need to appear casual. “Oi, Shinobu!”

He was halfway there before Shinobu reacted, turning to watch him approach and holding out a hand. Cue one, then, and Mitsuru took it, allowing himself to be pulled beneath the tree… and not coincidentally directly beneath a microphone and camera that he hadn’t seen, carefully mounted between two branches above them. He didn’t look up, taking their presence as read from the wires carefully taped to the trunk of the tree.

“Mitsuru….”

Shinobu was an excellent actor, as past experience had told, and Mitsuru allowed himself to be carried away by the strangely unhappy tone in that familiar voice. “What is it?”

Half the park was watching them by now, even if most of them couldn’t hear a word of it and Mitsuru stared up at Shinobu, letting his inner apprehension show.

“My father just announced my engagement.” Shinobu’s voice wavered slightly, something Mitsuru had never heard from him. “You remember Ki Reiko, don’t you?”

Caught more or less flat-footed, Mitsuru gaped at him. He knew that Shinobu had several girlfriends, and he’d met Reiko once or twice, but this…. Shinobu wouldn’t have come up with _this_ for a public exhibition, particularly if he wanted to start a fight, and Mitsuru began to feel things crumbling beneath him just a bit. “He, I… what?”

“So you must understand,” and Shinobu’s hands were coming up, and this was familiar too, one of the games they used to play with gullible underclassmen. Mitsuru turned into the gesture almost automatically, letting Shinobu tilt his face, one thumb tracing Mitsuru’s lower lip. “That we can’t see each other anymore.”

“I… always knew it would come to this.” Mitsuru closed his eyes, waiting for the dip of Shinobu’s head that never quite met his own.

One hand was suddenly at the small of Mitsuru’s back, slipping beneath the loose sweater, and Mitsuru’s eyes shot open as Shinobu dragged him into a full body press. The mouth that descended on his was demanding, aggressive and not about to take no for an answer.

Hands coming up to shove at Shinobu, Mitsuru’s eyes lit on the camera and he resisted the urge to knee his roommate where it would really hurt. Arms instead winding around Shinobu’s neck, he managed to relax and give as good as he got.

If his first mistake had been agreeing to this, knowing that Shinobu was up to something, he second was in giving in and playing the good sport because, a moment later, he was pressed up against the tree, Shinobu’s thigh between his own and rapidly running out of breath.

Girlfriend’s aplenty hadn’t prepared him for this, sweater rucked halfway up, the rough bark of the tree digging into his back and Shinobu’s weight pressing against him as slim fingers slid beneath the waistband of his pants, the motion disguised slightly by Shinobu’s long coat, and Mitsuru made a sound that was meant to be a protest but instead came out as a muffled _moan_ and he could feel himself flushing… and his body reacting.

Digging his fingers into Shinobu, Mitsuru found the leverage to shove him away, glaring at him with barely repressed fury. “So _that’s_ what this was all about,” he spat. “Use me as long as possible and then cast me aside?”

“Mitsuru, I….”

“Never again!” Turning on his heel, Mitsuru fled, leaving Shinobu staring after him.

“Did you see…?” Shun and Hasukawa goggled shamelessly at the scene from behind a pair of the camera-toting college students.

“No,” Hasukawa told him flatly, reaching up to forcibly turn Shun’s head away, “and neither did you.”

Shun swatted at him, still staring as Shinobu stared after Mitsuru until he disappeared and then turned, face averted, and trudged disconsolately from the park. “You know, anyone who didn’t actually _know_ them might be taken in by that.”

“But we still don’t know what Shinobu is _up_ to,” Hasukawa hissed, suddenly aware that Shinobu and Mitsuru’s accomplices were regarding them with amused puzzlement. “Come _on_ , Shun.”

“Well, we’ll find out on Thursday.” Shun admitted grudgingly, allowing himself to be pulled from the park.

“Hopefully.”

By the time Shinobu got back to the apartment, Mitsuru had convinced himself that punching his roommate in the head would be counter-productive – and they couldn’t afford to pay for repairs anyway. Or at least _he_ couldn’t.

His resolve was sorely tested by Shinobu’s calm greeting of, “The club is very excited. Apparently they recorded an incredible variety of reactions.”

“What,” Mitsuru demanded, ignoring this as irrelevant, “was _that_ in aid of?”

“What was what in aid of?” Shinobu shrugged off his long coat and moved to put it away.

“You went to a _lot_ of trouble for a very public exhibition of, of _molesting_ me,” Mitsuru snarled. “You can’t afford that, _Tezuka_ Shinobu. You lead ‘the examined life’, remember?”

“Me?” Shinobu smiled at him, the faint, cheerful smile that said he not only held the aces, but probably also a few extra cards that hadn’t been in the deck to begin with. “I’m just a good sport who does a little acting for his college.”

“No one in the world is going to believe that!”

Closing the closet door, Shinobu tugged his tie loose and leaned against it. “No one who knows me, perhaps… but it can’t be proven otherwise.”

“ _WHY_!?” Mitsuru was suddenly directly in Shinobu’s personal space, hands twitching as he fought the urge to simply slug the smile right off Shinobu’s face.

“Because I’m engaged to be married,” Shinobu told him simply.

Mitsuru stared at him, trying to connect the one to the other. Shinobu waited, calm and perfectly confident as Mitsuru struggled with it.

“You… made a public exhibition of what our relationship _isn’t_.” Mitsuru scowled, “because… you want to control what people think it _is_.”

Shinobu made an encouraging gesture, but said nothing.

“But anyone who knows you is going to assume that it’s true! You wouldn’t put together something so elaborate and deliberately false if you weren’t covering up something else… altogether.” Mitsuru rubbed his forehead.

“You need more time to think,” Shinobu observed, raising his hands and pushing gently. “Give it a little ti-“

Mitsuru swept his hands away angrily. “You haven’t tried to use me as a pawn in years, Shinobu. What the hell made you think I’d let you get away with it this time, much less sit back and play your stupid game when you owe me an explanation!”

“I gave you an explanation.”

Mitsuru threw the first punch, but Shinobu was ready for him, hand coming up as he moved forward. After a brief scuffle, Mitsuru was face down on the floor, one arm twisted up behind him, with Shinobu kneeling on his back. “You can only take me by surprise once, Mitsuru.”

Mitsuru heaved at him, but Shinobu didn’t budge. After several minutes of struggling, despite Shinobu’s slowly tightening grip, Mitsuru finally gave up. Shinobu did not let him go, however, keeping him pinned to the floor.

“… you wanted something to point to when the rumors start,” Mitsuru finally offered, voice muffled somewhat against the floor. He didn’t sound any less angry, but Shinobu eased up slightly, giving him a bit more room to breathe. “What I don’t get is why you would bother. Why provide a cover for something that doesn’t exist?”

Shinobu gave a disgusted sigh and let go, rising to his feet. “I know you’re not this dense. I wouldn’t go to all that trouble to cover-up a non-existent relationship. We _have_ a relationship, idiot.”

“Not that kind of relationship,” Mitsuru retorted, pushing himself slowly upright.

“They don’t know that.”

Mitsuru rubbed his head. “Now you’re just being difficult.”

“I prefer ‘enigmatic’.” Shinobu reached out to brush a thumb against Mitsuru’s lower lip, expression still perfectly calm. “We have a relationship, Mitsuru. It’s not one I intend to give up… and if my family thinks it’s a sexual one, they’ll tolerate it far more easily than if they thought it something more.”

“So you put together a lie to convince them that it’s actually a double-bluff?” Mitsuru shook his head, eyeing Shinobu with suspicion as he reached up to catch at the finger tracing his mouth. That admission alone was more than he’d ever gotten out of Shinobu, although he’d known all along that it would take some sort of divine intervention to separate Shinobu from himself. “Who, exactly, are you trying to fool?”

“You.”

As Mitsuru gaped at him, Shinobu stepped forward, again dragging him into an open-mouthed, demanding kiss. Somehow, hitting him again didn’t really seem like the right response and, after a moment, Mitsuru gave in to what appeared to be the inevitable, winding his arms around Shinobu and responding with lazy resignation.

When Shinobu finally allowed him to come up for air, one hand again beneath Mitsuru’s clothes, he demanded, “So you engineered all of this as an excuse to get me into _bed_?”

“I wouldn’t go to all that effort just for that,” Shinobu told him, laughing softly. “Removing the possibility that my family would decide to eliminate you as an obstacle was a convenient side-effect.”

“You mean that now they see me as a sex object and not an actual friend of some sort, they can ignore me and move along, business as usual?” Mitsuru snorted, allowing Shinobu to pull his shirt off over his head. “Did you ever plan on asking me how _I_ felt about any of this?”

“No.” Shinobu drew him along toward their shared bedroom by the waistband of his pants.

“Did you consider that I might say no?”

“Yes.” Mitsuru’s futon was still set out on the floor, bedding askew as it often was when he had a particularly early class and ran out of time to fold it up. Shinobu allowed himself to be drawn down by Mitsuru, pausing halfway for another exploration of Mitsuru’s mouth, which led in turn to a leisurely journey along his jaw and down his throat.

“… and then what?” Mitsuru asked, voice somewhat strangled.

Shinobu gave him a thoughtful look. “I would probably have done something we’d both regret.”

An honest answer, if a slightly unsettling one, but Mitsuru knew exactly what Shinobu was capable of – and doing direct harm to Mitsuru wasn’t one of them. That still left a wide open field, but he didn’t let it trouble him. With a mental shrug, he reached up to work Shinobu’s tie free.

“You’re being remarkably accepting,” Shinobu murmured, lips moving against the hollow at the base of Mitsuru’s throat.

Mitsuru laughed, as he opened Shinobu’s thin shirt and working his fingers beneath layers of fabric to find skin. “I’ve always known what you want from me, Shinobu.”

Shinobu pushed him firmly against the futon, fingers working at the closure of Mitsuru’s pants. ‘Everytime I think I’ve put something past him….’ The things Shinobu never said aloud crawled across his skin with the drag of Mitsuru’s hands, tugging at Shinobu’s shirt and sliding nimbly beneath to dance across bared skin as clothing was swiftly discarded.

Enjoyable, if slightly fumbling, bare skin and stroking hands and an exploration of bodies they already knew. Transient pleasure to gain just a brief stay against encroaching reality - an easy movement of sweat-streaked skin followed by the drag and stab of a tongue, the press of fingers and the promise of something more… just out of reach.

 _”So you had a fight?” Shun looked almost disappointed, although Hasukawa’s ill-disguised relief earned him a dirty look. “What was he after?”_

 _“Same thing he’s always after.” Mitsuru glanced up at the rain-streaked window, lips twisting wryly. ‘Just a little shelter, just a little longer, before he has to face the storm….’_   


**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Here is Greenwood: ShinobuxMitsuru- some semi-public sex Shinobu employs to show Mitsuru exactly who he belongs to.


End file.
